Alexander Skarsgard to play mute vigilante in new thriller

Los Angeles - Duncan Jones thinks Alexander Skarsgard is a "terrific" choice to play the lead role in his new thriller Mute.

The 44-year-old director - the son of the late music legend David Bowie - was thrilled to be able to cast the True Blood star as a vigilante barman in his forthcoming movie.

In the story, which is set 40 years in the future, Skarsgard's character Leo Beiler is unable to speak due to a childhood trauma but goes in search of a missing girl in mid-21st century Berlin.

He explained: "I think he'll do a terrific job. Leo is a character who doesn't talk, so much of the communication is going to be about the nuances of the performance and where I put the camera to pick them up. The other two characters are a pair of buddies who are incredibly talkative, very loquacious and witty. You're bounced between their two stories. One guy who's silent, and the other two who are babbling all the time."

Jones - who has been busy working on Warcraft, based on the fantasy video game series of the same name - first developed the idea for Mute a few years ago, and since its first inception the plot has got a lot darker.

Speaking of the development of the movie - who will also star Paul Rudd - and the villainous characters, Jones said: "Over the years I had some big, leaping ideas about what would make the film weirder and darker, So we future-fied it. It's a thriller with a very weird tone ... The two villains of the piece are what's kept me want to do it since day one. Those characters are unique. You have not seen a pair like this."

Jones was partly inspired by Sir Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi epic Blade Runner and wants to emulate its style when they begin filming on location in Berlin, Germany.

The Source Code director told Empire magazine: "We are going to be shooting in Berlin. During the 1970s, with so much of the city still to rebuild, a lot of futuristic architecture was put up.

"It goes very dark, and then it also goes very darkly funny. It's science-fiction urban, so it certainly owes some of its influence to Blade Runner. But in a way, the references to Blade Runner are more superficial."